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How Not To Balls Up “The X” Deck  

Someone has to point out the common mistakes in the X decks. That someone might as well be Saikyo.

I wasn’t going to do this originally because I wasn’t fond of the controversy it may cause. Then I thought, screw it. When has that ever stopped me before? Because Dragonic Overlord “The X” has all the making of a brilliant deck and I rarely see anyone use it in its most optimal manner.

A lot of people run The X making all sorts of strange choices, directly at the expense of consistency and performance over stupid tricks. Not me. I use the straightforward approach because let’s be honest, mind-games go over the heads of most and they’re not smart enough to be baited into doing something stupid because they know you know they know you know. It’s easier to just be a bit more general than that and punish them for every mistake. And so, in order to reduce the number of people who would be one of those mistake-making people, I have compiled a list of what NOT to do when building a Dragonic Overlord “The X” deck so that you may have considerably better results.

1.     Run 12 Critical, 4 Heal

I would actually apply this to almost every other deck if I lacked context, but there’s a bigger reason for it here. Your main gambit is to threaten with the End. For that, you need Crits to drive the pressure home. They -2 at least to block the Vanguard, you get a Critical, you pile it to a RG, and either they -2 again stopping it, making it a -4 for that turn, or eat 2 damage. You DO NOT need Draw Triggers; there is no point trying to dig for your main Grade 3s when Legion searches either copy of The X or the End out. Nor do you need Stands; this was a common mistake made in BT05 the End and to me was not a tenable position to hold owing to the lack of available good Stand targets. Actually, there’s less here since you have 8 Grade 3s who need to stay in the hand to keep your abilities active. So that leaves like one guy and it’s incidental either way.

2.     Big columns make for big letdowns.

I’ve also seen people trying to run the X with some new Generation Break units that power up when something dies. Sounds nice on paper owing to the large amounts of retiring going on at once, but think about what you’re doing. You’re running them at the expense of other stuff that feeds your main gambit. Gyokuryu, Veira and Tanaz are not so good that it is worth risking bad columns until then. While we’re on the subject of Veira, that card and Stands overall in this build are not efficient. Veria gives you 10k power at the expense of 10k shield, so in terms of what is lost it washes at best shield to power-wise, and no matter how powerful a column becomes, the opponent will simply take it if there is nothing on-hit related to pile onto it. And that’s bad when Veira is a Stand Trigger and doesn’t really do that.

Come on, the only reason you run Stands in the first place is to take advantage of RG skills more, if there are a lot of them. Some run them for the extra chances at damage, but if you hit, big whoop, you’ve EQUALED a Critical, but haven’t done better. Otherwise, it’s basically no skin off the opponent’s nose. Hence 12 Critical; it relies on the rear-guards less and is easier to make a good situation out of.

3.     Dragonic Overlord the Great is not an ideal fail-con Grade 3.

This tends to be the Grade 3 of choice should you fail to ride the X, apparently because more synergy with Burning Horn and Dragonic Burnout. Except what’s the big deal? With less people being fixated on Crossrides Burning Horn’s only for swinging alone, which seems a bit unrealistic unless you play against something similar to the X, and the available Overlords in the Drop Zone should be enough to fuel Burnout consistently enough. The Great also comes with a condition of needing to run Neoflame as well, making space Grade 2-wise tighter. A +1 every turn sounds good, but the X can accomplish that much near the end, and there’s actually a more consistent way to murder more cards. Root Flare Dragon, and that directly seals off the Great’s Legion skill that turn anyway. So to be honest, if you want to +1, run something like Dragonic Blademaster (who compliments your Stride guy) instead since it gives more freedom on what dies.

4.     Neither is the Dragonic Overlord Break Ride.

Be honest with me, do you really want a Grade 3 that’ll sit on its ass and do nothing until you draw the X and hit 4 damage? You may as well run the faster Blademaster, get the murdering done sooner, and unlock your Generation Break more efficiently.

5.     The X is good alone, but you cannot get away without Stride as well.

You can’t get away with not running G-Units, for G-Assist purposes if nothing else. But there’s another reason for that. Late Game, The X would generate +1 for Counterblast 1 if he were to go it alone. Root Flare Dragon on the other hand can blow up the same number of cards and you would be one card up thanks to Triple Drive and one Counterblast better off. This is the more practical option when your Vanguard can’t be trusted to not meet a Sentinel to the face. Stride also serves as a way to have a Mid Game without the aid of Legion just yet, and saves on having to guard like mad just to fuel it. So reasonably, there shouldn’t be much of a reason to jump to Legion right off the bat.

6.     How have people not heard of Twilight Arrow Dragon?

This is probably the biggest reason to run Stride. I’ve used Twilight Arrow Dragon in my own build to great effect, simply because of how useful its skill is. Neoflame’s good and most certainly can be run too, but Twilight Arrow is simply better owing to being basically repeatable for a negligible condition, and works as a great follow up to your already pressuring Vanguard. There’s not much fear of Counterblast usage as long as you can consistently keep 2 open for the End, and your build will almost certainly run Protect Orb Dragon to make unflipping a little easier.

7.     You honestly do not need that many Calamity Tower Wyvern cards in there.

Calamity Tower is a two-off AT MOST. Its power is a poor 5000, which relegates it to only supporting 11k attackers or just going behind the Vanguard. Many people run 4 because for some reason they enjoy having to ride the X again, then Legioning them back after soulblasting the old soul away, but to me, that’s sort of like winning on the lottery, then using the earnings to buy another lottery ticket. You’re just fucking back where you started. The triggers you send back and by extension the copies of Overlords you put back are honestly not worth it. Not by any statistically significant amount. Just save yourself the bother and just Root Flare the opponent’s cards away if you want to blow shit up that badly. Calamity should only exist as a quick shortcut to Legion, and nothing else.

And yes, I am fully aware of the implications of threatening with the End constantly, but by the time you hit a point where you COULD Legion-spam, you are most likely at a point in the game where any on-hit skill is going to get cockblocked. The End will realistically never go live on 4 damage and above because Critical Triggers exist. It’s not worth running a lot of Calamity Tower and by extension Grom for the non-existent extra pressure.

8.     Only attack the rear-guards with the X if you actually have the End in your hand.

What I’ve seen a lot of people do is attack the opponent’s rear-guard, trying to bluff their way through a free attack, and then leave it up to chance as to whether they actually follow through on the threat that started empty and has a good chance to remain empty. I cannot understand why it is so hard to understand the odds in this instance are NOT IN YOUR FAVOUR. If you don’t have the End yet, swing at the Vanguard. Only start attacking rear-guards if you need to get rid of something problematic like Silent Tom AND have the End ready to spring. The opponent will guard the vanguard regardless because of the implied threat.

Even so, the odds of you actually drive checking the End in the process isn’t THAT high. It’s much more effective to just swing with the Legioned X at the Vanguard in that case, since if it turns out you didn’t get it, the opponent is what, losing 5k shield? For an attack that would eat a -2 from the opponent at least if they guarded the Vanguard? That advantage could spell defeat for you, maybe not now, but later down the line.

Of course, if you managed to get the End to your hand upon Legion this generally won’t be an issue, but when it’s gone, it’s something important to keep in mind.

9.     No matter what anyone says, you are not being a dirty little metasheep.

I think choosing to follow every pointer I made here should make you different from them, anyhow. So just kono yono subete no mono yakitsukusu mokushiroku no honoo their ass and forget them. Scrubs.

Ask if I pronounce it “The Ex” or “The Cross” at saikyocardfighter@outlook.com